When the folks of Nazareth heard these words quoted by Jesus, they thought Jesus was offering to be the kind of political Messiah that was popularly envisioned. They hoped he would throw off the yoke of Roman oppression, and they swiftly turned on him when Jesus made it plain that he was speaking of another kind of oppression, one which was spiritual in nature. They were in bondage to sin, not just to Roman rule, and the freedom which Jesus offered involved God’s liberating forgiveness, not a political uprising. When Jesus said, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing," it was, indeed, a revolutionary statement, but not in the way in which people understood it.

Paul, too, sought to bring revolutionary concepts to the church at Corinth. He has just finished explaining about spiritual gifts, about how each person is allotted gifts to be used for the common good, not in order to make distinctions among themselves. He goes on to say, "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit." Paul is addressing his concerns related to the desires of the members of the church at Corinth to boast of their spiritual superiority. Such boasting was leading to division and unrest in the church. Certain members of the church were quarreling and forming competitive cliques, each of which claimed to be more spiritual than the next. Paul desperately needed a new image to get his message across and he chose this wonderful image of the body. Think about it for a moment.

The human body has about a zillion parts. No one, or two or three of them, taken alone or together, would amount to much of anything. But taken all together, they join to form one of God’s most awesome creations. The New Testament uses many images to describe the church: In 1 Corinthians 3, the church is compared to a field and to a building. In Ephesians 5, the church is compared to a bride. In each of these comparisons, the church is "like" this, or "like" that. But then, in this passage from Corinthians, Paul says the church IS the body of Christ. He doesn’t say "like" the body of Christ. He says we ARE the body of Christ. With this imagery, Paul is giving us a new blueprint for the church, a prescription for building a healthy body of Christ.

The first characteristic of a healthy body of Christ, Paul tells us, is unity - all the parts working together for one purpose. Verse 12 says, "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ." Throughout the New Testament we can find constant warnings against letting ourselves be distracted by arguments and dissension. It's as if the apostles are saying, "Come on, can't we all just get along? Is what you're arguing about going to bring people to Christ? If not, then it's just not worth it." The apostles had only one mind, the mind of Christ, to guide everything they did. They had only one purpose in life, to spread the good news of Christ. Funny how when you identify your greatest priority in life, lots of little details fall by the wayside. They're simply not important anymore. Until the church has one mind and one purpose, we will continue to get distracted by trivial matters. The best way for us to destroy the image and body of Christ is to argue among ourselves.

Chad Sheron, a doctor and former basketball player at Vanderbilt University, combined his knowledge of teamwork and medicine to describe how a body is supposed to work in unity. He observed that the various cells of the human body--muscle cells, blood cells, organ cells, bone cells, and all the other cells -- are designed to work together to enhance the health and life of the entire body. But occasionally, a cell can begin growing and functioning out of sync with the other cells. It begins growing for its own purposes, and no longer follows the same blueprint as the other cells. This type of cell is called a mutagen, and mutagens are the cells that create a cancer in the body. As Chad says, "Just as mutagens cause cancer in the human body, people who behave like mutagens can have a cancerous effect on a team." (Or on a church!) If we, as the body of Christ, would realize that we share one mind and one purpose, if nothing else in life mattered to us as much as sharing the good news of Jesus, we could transform our whole world.

How sad it is then, to watch churches and denominations tearing themselves apart, increasing rather than decreasing divisions, as they draw lines to exclude certain categories of people, or worse yet, certain categories of Christians, from their worship or from their pulpits. Southern Baptists recently sought to bar women from ordination, and almost every denomination is drawing lines, either in sand or in concrete, about homosexuals and their rights within the body of Christ. They need to go back and re-read this part of Paul’s message.

Paul tell us that the second characteristic of a healthy body of Christ is equality. A healthy body of Christ values all members equally. Listen to verses 22-25: " . . . those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor .... But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other." As a pastor of this church, I have the honor of standing before you each week. But my importance to this church is no greater than any other member of the body of Christ. Every last one of us, from the youngest to the oldest member, the richest to the poorest, is an equally valuable and important member of the body of Christ.

Have you ever felt like you're just not good enough to be valuable to the world? Author Max Lucado believes a society that doesn't believe in God sees no inherent value in human beings. What makes us different from a rock or an old sock? And if we have no inherent, inborn value as human beings, then we must create our own criteria to measure value. So we tend to value people either for their appearance or their performance. If you're good-looking, smart, athletic, or if you earn a lot of money, then you are valuable. If you don't fit that criteria, you're just taking up space. But check out Jesus' value system. He loved the outcast, the poor, the handicapped, the unclean, the sinner. Why? Lucado writes, "Jesus' love does not depend on what we do for him. Not at all. In the eyes of the King, you have value simply because you are." Listen to that again: "In the eyes of the King, you have value simply because you are." Makes us all sit up a little straighter, doesn't it? At your job, you may feel like just another number on a time card. In your other relationships you may feel like you are not being heard and recognized. But in the church, you are of infinite value. You have skills, abilities, and life experiences that other people need. You are important to the body of Christ.

The best place to see a picture of a truly alive, healthy body of Christ is in the book of Acts. In Acts 2: 42-47 and in Acts 4: 32-37 we see there were no barriers between the believers there. Rich and poor Christians, men and women, educated and uneducated believers lived and worked and ate side by side. In fact, the wealthier believers sold many of their possessions in order to provide for the needs of the poorer members so that there would be equality among them. And what was the result of this unity and equality? According to Acts 2, verse 47, "And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Their lifestyle was having an impact on the society around them. People were coming to Christ because of the example of these early Christian believers. Equality, acceptance, dignity and respect should be accorded to every person in the church, to every person in the world! That is what Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of when he stirringly said in his now famous "I Have a Dream" speech:

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today."

This prophet whose birthday, courage, and passion for justice we celebrated this past week, had a dream that one day the world would be transformed and would resemble Paul’s definition of the body of Christ.

The final characteristic of a healthy body of Christ mentioned by Paul is empathy – we are called to share one another’s joys and sorrows. As I Corinthians 12: 26 says, "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." We weren't meant to bear our burdens alone. The body of Christ was meant to suffer with those who suffer and rejoice with those who rejoice. That is one of the reasons why we share joys and concerns during our prayer time each week and why we invite you to accept the responsibility to pray for those whose needs are lifted up.

A pastor once told this story about visiting Lester, an elderly man suffering from cancer: Often, Lester was in such pain that he would just lie on the bed and moan softly, "O-o-h me. Oh me." One day, the pastor happened by when Lester's son was visiting. He was appalled to see the son lean down close to his father and repeat "Oh me. Oh me," as if he were mocking the older gentleman. The son, noting the pastor’s dismay, quickly explained: Before coming to the hospital, Lester had lived with his son, daughter-in-law, and his two-year-old grandson, Wesley. Little Wesley loved to "help" his grandfather. He would come alongside him, grab the bottom of his walking cane, and walk with Lester around the house. Wesley would also demonstrate his friendship by echoing his grandfather's moans, "Oh me. Oh me." In his own way, little Wesley was trying to share his grandfather's pain.

That's what a healthy body of Christ does: we walk alongside one another and share one another's pain. I'm not trying to embarrass anybody, but I want everyone to take a moment and look at the people around you. Just look around you for a moment. Whether you know it or not, there are people on all sides of you, in front of you and behind you, whose hearts are breaking or who are engaged in some kind of personal struggle: people who are confused, angry, lost, scared, broken in spirit. Some have suffered a personal loss, others struggle with job and career choices, while still others just need a friend to listen. They need you. You need them. That's what the church is all about. We don't have to go it alone.

Peter and Ania Bannister have just proposed a new initiative for our church They’re suggesting that we begin to meet in small groups, no more than eight or ten, in people’s homes, to get to know one another, to reflect on scripture and to share one another’s joys and sorrows. Check your bulletin for the announcement and speak to Peter or Ania if you’d like to be part of such a group. Being the body of Christ is so much more than just coming to church on Sunday morning. It is caring for one another. It is being passionate about issues of justice and equality. It is acknowledging our interdependence and striving to work together for the common good.